A Day at the Golden Arches

A day at McDonald's

FREEDOM...that is what comes to mind when I take a look at that unforgettable logo. A logo that a group of total strangers could look at together, and still have one thing in common...they know McDonald's.Growing up, I was an easy child to please. A few comics and action figures was all I ever needed. However, there was something else. Something that almost every child of my era longed for...and that something was a day at the Golden Arches. As I sit back and talk with my friends about the yesteryears; it almost seems like some sort of law that McDonald's has to be brought up. Whether you went for the food, the arcade games, the playgrounds, or the toys, every child had his or her agenda when stepping through the doors.Personally, I went for all of the above. You see, when I went to McDonald's I gained some sort of freedom. A freedom that couldn't be fount anywhere else. I ate, I played, and I even took a piece of that freedom home with me. McDonald's never let me down, and to this day, provided some of the best memories I can recall.

Here are my four main categories ranked in order from the least important, to the unforgettable.

#4 - THE FOOD

Coming in at number four is, well you guessed it...the food. While the food provided all the flavor of cheap burgers, chicken and fries a kid could want, it wasn't the focal point. Now don't get me wrong, I liked the food just fine, it just wasn't the #1 priority of my trip. The chicken nugget Happy Meal was always the choice for me. Some kids, like my fiance, was more of a burger kid. Whatever your preference was,the Happy Meal featured your main food item, fries, a small drink, a little pack of character shaped cookies, and a toy.

#3 - The Playgrounds

I can't really call number three "play places", because that's not what they were known as when I was a kid. Nope, no fancy name, just a playground. Actually, I couldn't even find a picture that remotely looked like our local McDonald's playground. It was an old single leveled, ball pit dwelling, short slide shocking nightmare. Ah, but how fun it could be at times. Dirty black bottomed socks and ball fights were all the rage in those days; except the ill fated day when I discovered that a kid had left his breakfast in the ball pit. Stepping on pancakes IS as gross as you would expect it to be. Playgrounds have evolved over the days, into the indoor mega giants now known as PlayPlaces. Although they lack the nostalgic feel of the old playgrounds, they still look equally if not more enjoyable.

#2 - The Arcade Games

As the trip to the Golden Arches begin to see its end, there was one last thing I had to do. Throughout the entire eating process, there was always the loud parent dreading arcade music and noises. Hearing these noises while you stuffed your face with McDonald's food was undoubtedly one of the best parts of the trip. Once the food was devoured, and the playground lost its appeal, it was time to work my fingers out a little. I knew that I would only receive a few quarters, so I had to make wise choices on what I played. However, upon entering the building, there was no question to which arcade games would be deemed mine.Other than the Ninja Turtles Arcade game, the two games above were the ultimate in early 90's arcade gaming choices. Not only were the games extremely fun, there were so many character choices! Where else could a kid play as Bart Simpson and Wolverine within a ten minute period! It would be hard to imagine how many quarters were put into those machines, and the amount of button mashing fun I walked away with.

#1 - The ToysHere it is, the number one thing I enjoyed most about McDonald's...the toys. I don't think I am the only one who shares this opinion, for the fact that McDonald's toys are still being wrote about today, helps preserve their well deserved glory.Whatever the latest craze was, McDonald's was almost sure to have a toy for it. Sure, other fast food joints had good toys too, but McDonald's just seemed to have the best. If you were to go to my basement right now, you would find a Happy Meal toy graveyard, as I have yet to toss any of them away and have doomed them to a lifetime in brown cardboard boxes. It would be nearly impossible to cover all the assortments of toys offered throughout the years, so I have gathered a few that I could remember liking.McDonald's always offered Disney related toys and holiday themed toys too. I would be lying if I said that I enjoyed getting a holiday themed pail over a toy, but I took whatever I could get!Even though I was a little bit older when it hit, the Teenie Beanie Baby craze was insane. My fiance remembers going with her mom just about daily to get the latest beanies,and the best bragging rights. It's funny how we fight tooth and nail for random toys, and yet they hold next to no value now...oh well, it's the given rights of being a kid.

As i finish up this rather lengthy article about McDonald's, I can't help but to sit back and crack a smile. Those were fun days well spent. You couldn't buy the great memories that I have collected throughout the years. I still visit McDonald's every now and then, only to sit and remember those glorious days at the Golden Arches.

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I remember when I was 6 years old, I went to McDonald's in Hershey, and they got the biggest playplace ever. I remember they have a sesame street arcade that watches video, I use to watch that one with the letter Z over, over, and over again.

Great way to sum up the joy of McD's! I loved the atmosphere of McDonald's with all the Mcdonaldland Murals, etc. The location I went to most was Sherlock Holmes themed so they had all sorts of replica props and photos from old movies-pretty awesome. I was a huge Muppet Babies fan growing up and I had all of those toys except for Piggy and Animal.

Holy crap your McDonalds' had arcade games?? What the eff, mine never did! Other than that, I agree...it was an amazing place! I wish that I kept all the toys I got over the years from McDonalds, but I never did. I remember most of the toys in the pictures you have, particularly the Super Mario ones. Those brought back some memories. Did you ever have a birthday at McDonald's? I had my 6th birthday there and I remember they brought me to this basement party room with all sorts of different games and stuff...it was pretty neat. Anyways, I'm rambling on here, but the article excited me.

I was picky when I was little is why I wasn't eating my food when we ate at McDonalds many years ago. When we had McDonald's for lunch when I went to summer school when I was ten, the people at McDonald's goofed up my burger and I didn't have any lunch as a result. My teachers wouldn't take it back.

This article is what retrojunk is about. This brought up so many memories from my past. I had every one of the happy meal toys you mentioned and forgot completley about them. But one look at the picture and all the memories came flooding back in a second. Well done man.

Well, you have to realize that I grew up in the 1980's a time during which video games were litterally everywhere. You couldn't walk into a drug store, grocery sore or general store without seeing 2 or 3 video games set up near the enterance or in the back or the store. Heck our local Sears even had a Ms. Pacman machine. I gotta tell you, it was a wonderful world back then. But anyway, the point is having grown up in the 80's I'm very familiar with the concept of video games set up randomly in stores and resturants.

I've never been to a McDonald's with and arcade either, but then again steven never said there was an arcade in his McDonald's; he said that there were some "arcade games". Video games are often foud outside of arcade's in fact it is not an uncommon practice for some of the low scale resturants (fast food, pizza places, sub shops etc) to have a few video games set up near in enterence. This was particularly common in the early to mid 80's but you still see it quite a bit. I can't remember ever seeing any arcade games in McDonald's but it doesn't seem to far fetched.

I remember when I was a kid and the MickyD's(that's what my parents and I called it since God knows when, and still do) near my Dad's video store had just gotten a playground. It rained that morning, but I didn't give two s***s and a f*** about wet clothes. Great article! Thumbs up!!!

Wow, mine didn't have arcade games either. I do identify with most of what you said in the article though. McDonald's was a magical place back in the day. I loved the sounds and smells and the ambience. What I really miss are the McDonaldland characters. They use to be on everything. Every sack, every cup, in every commercial. Now the packaging features some "Global casting stars" mumbo jumbo. I want the Hamburgler back, dang it!

Great Article! I'm glad you shard some of your old McDonalds toys. My McDonald's never had an arcade. I live in Ohio and there is this hugh mall called Easton and they have a HUGH Mcdonald's (which as of a few months ago they moved) but it had a Dreamcast, SNES, N64, and a Wii.

Oh man oh MAN did I dread the time when Hot Wheels and Barbies would return. I never wanted to go during that time because I'd ALWAYS get a Barbie and I HATE Barbies! Sometimes I'd interject to the person taking the order to please give me a Hot Wheel but nope, always a Barbie. Because girls aren't allowed to like cars unless they're pink and driven by Barbie. Sexist bastards.

I always remember the playgrounds, especially when the Play Place rolled around and it was a system of tubes. There was always some pissed off parent hanging around outside yelling at the tube network bribing their kid to come out (who knew damn well those bribes would be nullified the second they crawled out). While I never experienced a McDonalds with an arcade, when the Play Place appeared they had this computer game (just one). I don't know the details of it because I -never- got to use it. There was always one kid who'd hog it for hours while the parents did who knows what, thus I'd have to leave long before the kid had to leave. I'm not sure if it still works out that way or not. I'm sure they don't have a "lucky" employee to keep track so everyone has a chance (I can just smell lawsuits from that), so probably so.

I don't think I've ever encountered the "Death Hamburger" (a park near my house had something simmilar, but you didn't get to sit in it) but there was something simmilar that parents probably reffered to as such. Basically it was a giant enclosed observation platform, and it stems from the "frantic parent trying to get their kid to leave" thing. It didn't spin, but you could fit about a dozen kids inside. Usually the kids in there laughed at the parent trying to get them out (or laughing at some other kids parents).

I remembered from my last post that I had two of those Batman toys. I dunno where they're at though, if I still even have them. I do recall seeing some of those toy promotions, but I'm not sure if I ever got those or not. I do recall a Furby promotion though, back when they were The Thing. I was always curious wondering how many kids begged and pleaded to go there so they can get a Furby, only to find out they were little plastic fakes.

Up until I was five years old we only had one McDonalds in my home town. This was in the late1970's, a time before they had come up with the ingenous ideas of attaching playgrounds to the stores and giving kids the choice of Chicken McNuggets with their Happy Meal, heck McNuggets didn't even exist yet. Back then Happy Meals came with a hamburger, fires, a drink, cookies and a toy. Period. You got to choose whether or not you wanted cheese on your burger but the options ended there. Yet still we loved McDonald's, we couldn't get enough of it. Sure there were other fast food resturants that had kid's meals featuring colorfull boxes and cheap plastic toys but somehow they just couldn't hold a candle to the McDonald's experience. When I was five they opened a second McDonalds which we dubbed "The New McDonalds." We perfered "The New McDonalds" to "The Old McDonalds" not only because when your that age new is always better but also becuase it had the innovative feature of a playground. Of couse this was back before the term "Play Place" had any meaning, before the mazes of plastic tubes, even before the ball-pits. This playground had the same equiptment that you would expect to find on any playgroud the one difference being that it was McDonald Land themed. So did that really make it any better than any other playground? You bet it did!!!! I fondly remember the Captian Crook themed large metal slide (none of the new-fangled plastic crap), the Grimace themed teeter-totter, and thee of those springy ride deals featuring the Happy Meal guys (Burger, Fries and Drink that is, still no McNuggets). However, my fovorite was a ride that I have since come to refer to as "The Spinning Hamburger of Death." This was a large, metal, hollowed out, open topped hamberger that held 5-8 kids (depending on the age and size of the kids), it had wheel in the center that you could turn to make that hamberger spin. By the time we go 4 or 5 kids in there cranking on that thing we could really get that burger flyin'. Of couse many a kid was injured, maimed or psychologically scarred by that thing (as the merry-go-round industy has taught us that small children and centripital force just don't mix) but we didn't care. Back then we had no idea that we were putting our short lives in jepardy evertime we cranked that wheel, to us it was just good, clean fun.

So you see, Steven, you are more right than you know. Even before the playgrounds, videogames and McNuggets, McDonalds still had a universal apeal to children. I don't know what it is but somehow it has a magical hold on us.

i went my girlfriends mom to mcdonald's to get 130 happymeals for the beanie baby happy meals. she got 130 happymeals and only 10 with food. it was crazy, i was 16 and so embarressed. she probably still has them and they are worth nothing.

Neat article!! My favorite Happy Meal toys as a kid were the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 toys (Big Sonic fan!!), any of the Hot Wheels promotions (C'mon what's not to love?), and the Teenie Beanie Babies (For a kid who was two years late into the fad, this was great). I also seem to remember a Mattel promotion that featured miniature Attack Pack toys (Does anyone remember those? Monster trucks with teeth and animal skin paint jobs?).

Im not sure if it was bk or mcd, but i rember sonic the hedge hog toys. I had most of the ones you showed to. my mcdonaldsdident have arcades, but the newest consoles hooked up to a tv trapped in a glass box with the latest game. you could play it but it would reset itself every 30 min.

Good article and I saw some familiar toys in there as well. when I was little the local McDonalds had a conveyor belt that ran from the kitchen across the ceiling and then down to the drive thru and I'm wondering if there were/are any of these elsewhere in the country?

I hated going whenever Halloween rolled around. T_T Getting a "bucket for treak or treating" was LAME, especially when I had a cloth grocery bag ten times as big as those piddly little pails.

I recall not finding a McDonalds with a ballpit until I was older. And by the time they did appear here they had a "3 and under" rule. ....I was 8. Bastards. Ah well, considering what you find in those ballpits (not snakes, but rather dirty diapers, food, candy, puke, and USED NEEDLES) I suppose it was for the better.

I remember those Beanie Baby fakies. I remember there was a big rush for them because OMG BEANIE BABIES when they weren't even the real deal and have even less value then the actual ones. But I didn't even like the real things. I like a toy you can play with, not one were you put plastic over the poem tag and put it on a shelf and wait for it to be worth money (are they even worth money now like they said they would be?)

Eh, personally, I've always preffered BK's prizes. I remember only several years back I was buying Kids Meals to get Star Wars toys (XD). Good times.

I never liked McDonalds food but I loved going to McDonalds. The one near our house had the old school playground with the Mayor McCheese prison headed thing. That was my favorite. I used to spend the whole day up in that head, pretending it was my castle and all the kids running around were my subjects...I miss those old playgrounds.

I never, in all my trips to McDonalds in all the areas where I live, never experienced any with video games inside, and I'm remembering from the early 80's to now... throughout at least a dozen different ones. Yea, our area was behind-the-times, but surely one must have had one... yet none.

Man, do I remember a lot of those toys! I sort of beat you to this category, but if you wanted to be specific on McDonald's, I'll bite.

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